“A Portal appears, in the middle of everything, yet no one around you sees it, or so you think, you start to hear the sound of trumpets, backed by Detroit techno, and jazz music. You check your shoulders, to see if you are indeed the only one to see it. Every other BLACK person stops in their tracks, gazes into it, walks towards it without a glimpse of fear, and jumps in.

Yo ass betta jump too!”

—Darryl DeAngelo Terrell

Artist: Darryl DeAngelo Terrell

Project: “A Way to Get Gone”

Description: In the ongoing multimedia project “A Way to Get Gone,” Darryl DeAngelo Terrell explores land that is historically tied to Blackness, like the Detroit neighborhood of Black Bottom, a once-bustling haven for Black Americans fleeing the South during the Great Migration that was demolished in the early ’60s. For Terrell, the act of considering the historical narratives and resonant power linked to these specific locations—from the Midwest to the East Coast to West Africa—can “aid in getting us free from the presence of the oppressive system that is whiteness.” 

“In these images, you will locate the Portals,” the Detroit-born, New York-based artist writes. “They be golden, fiery, alluring, entities that are only visible to Black people; they lead us to elsewhere.” The visuals are accompanied by original audio compositions, atmospheric soundscapes designed to “engulf us, fill us, and clean us while we are within the Portals.”